With the Turks in Palestine eBook

A short experience with Turkish courts and Turkish
justice taught our people that they would have to
establish a legal system of their own; two collaborating
judges were therefore appointed—­one to interpret
the Mosaic law, another to temper it with modern jurisprudence.
All Jewish disputes were settled by this court.
Its effectiveness may be judged by the fact that the
Arabs, weary of Turkish venality,—­as open
and shameless as anywhere in the world,—­began
in increasing numbers to bring their difficulties
to our tribunal. Jews are law-abiding people,
and life in those Palestine colonies tended to bring
out the fraternal qualities of our race; but it is
interesting to note that in over thirty years not
one Jewish criminal case was reported from forty-five
villages.

Zicron-Jacob was a little town of one hundred and
thirty “fires”—­so we call it—­when,
in 1910, on the advice of my elder brother, who was
head of the Jewish Experiment Station at Athlit, an
ancient town of the Crusaders, I left for America
to enter the service of the United States in the Department
of Agriculture. A few days after reaching this
country I took out my first naturalization papers
and proceeded to Washington, where I became part of
that great government service whose beneficent activity
is too little known by Americans. Here I remained
until June, 1913, when I returned to Palestine with
the object of taking motion-pictures and stereopticon
views. These I intended to use in a lecturing
tour for spreading the Zionist propaganda in the United
States.

During the years of my residence in America, I was
able to appreciate and judge in their right value
the beauty and inspiration of the life which my people
led in the Holy Land. From a distance, too, I
saw better the need for organization among our communities,
and I determined to build up a fraternal union of
the young Jewish men all over the country.

Two months after my return from America, an event
occurred which gave impetus to these projects.
The physician of our village, an old man who had devoted
his entire life to serving and healing the people of
Palestine, without distinction of race or religion,
was driving home one evening in his carriage from
a neighboring settlement. With him was a young
girl of sixteen. In a deserted place they were
set upon by four armed Arabs, who beat the old man
to unconsciousness as he tried, in vain, to defend
the girl from the terrible fate which awaited her.

Night came on. Alarmed by the absence of the
physician, we young men rode out in search of him.
We finally discovered what had happened; and then
and there, in the serene moonlight of that Eastern
night, with tragedy close at hand, I made my comrades
take oath on the honor of their sisters to organize
themselves into a strong society for the defense of
the life and honor of our villagers and of our people
at large.